BorgBackup vs ElkarBackup

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted backup & recovery options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

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FeatureBorgBackupElkarBackup
CategoryBackup & RecoveryBackup & Recovery
LicenseBSD-3-ClauseGPL-3.0
LanguagePythonJavaScript
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM256 MB512 MB
Deploymentbinary, bare-metaldocker, bare-metal
GitHub stars★ 13,588★ 415
First released20152014
ReplacesCarbonite, BackblazeCarbonite

Why pick each one

Choose BorgBackup if…

  • Excellent space efficiency
  • Strong security
  • Battle-tested
BorgBackup details

Choose ElkarBackup if…

  • GUI for rsync backups
  • Good scheduling
  • Multi-host
ElkarBackup details

Frequently asked questions

Is BorgBackup or ElkarBackup better?

Neither is universally better. BorgBackup has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are BorgBackup and ElkarBackup free and open-source?

Yes. BorgBackup is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and ElkarBackup under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run BorgBackup and ElkarBackup with Docker?

BorgBackup: check the project docs for container support. ElkarBackup: yes.

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